Chapter Forty-Five
“I HAVE HEARD OF SECTS THAT HAVE FALLEN TO IDOLATRY, PAYING WORSHIP TO THE SAINTS. THAT IS HERESY, AND IT WILL BE CUT OUT BY THE MINISTRY AND CHAPELS LIKE ROT FROM THE BODY. FOR THE SAINTS, WHILE GIFTED, ARE MORTAL FLESH, AND TO WORSHIP THOSE BORN OF MORTAL FLESH IS TO SET OURSELVES BEFORE THE HERALDS.”
The empty gun drops from my hands, clattering onto the floor, and my legs wobble underneath me.
Blood has dried sticky on my face and chest and hands.
Tremors rumble through the room, vibrating across my skin.
Trinity’s song shifts, growing wild and sharp, calling me back into it.
It tugs at every cell in my body, making it hard to hold myself together in solid form.
Wait, I tell it. I’m coming. I just have to say goodbye first.
Closing my eyes, I dissipate, arcing through and out of the Gate, across the miles of garden and metal plains, back to the outskirts of Opportunity. In the space of a moment, I’m whole again, my feet solid on the alloy, and when I open my eyes, they’re all there, together.
Little Gabriel, curled on the ground, his face relaxed in a true sleep.
Atlas and Liren, shock stretching their faces as they help Dani and a heavily limping Orion to their feet.
And my sisters.
Kelda is already in Halle’s arms, laughing, tears pouring down her face as Halle rocks her back and forth, squeezing her so tight while little furry Ember weaves figure eights around their feet.
They’re here. They’re alive and breathing and finally, truly safe. I know this as sure as I know my own heartbeat, as sure as I know their faces.
Kelda spots me first and cries out, and then she and Halle are running, crashing against me, hard enough that all three of us collapse in a heap of arms and legs and hugs and tears.
My body flares with pain, but I bite down on it and grip them tighter, my throat aching, tears dripping from my eyes.
I take in every bit of them: their warm, solid bodies; the strong, steady heartbeats pounding in their chests; the tears dampening their faces; the scent of their hair and skin that overpowers even the aura of blood and ash that surrounds me.
I want to stay in this moment. Live in this moment.
I pull back a little, looking at them through teardrops that cling to my lashes and break their faces into facets.
I keep one hand clutched on Halle’s arm and another on Kelda’s cheek, trying to memorize them exactly as they are now.
To burn their images into my chest where they can never be lost or wiped away.
No matter what I become after this.
Orion and Dani make their way toward us, him leaning heavily on her shoulder, her arm tight around his waist for support.
There’s pain pinching the corners of his eyes, but as soon as they make it to us, he drops onto the ground beside me and wraps his long arms around my chest, pulling me into him.
“You’re all right.” His voice is only a whisper, and I’m not sure if the words are for me or for himself, but he keeps saying them over and over again. You’re all right you’re all right you’re all right …
Dani stands nearby, her mouth pressed into a flat line. “We should take this reunion on the road. Get as far away from the Gate as possible. There is no way that whatever is up there is going to let us go without a fight after everything we’ve seen.”
“Nothing is left up there to fight.” The words slip from my mouth just as a quick, bright flash cuts across the corner of my eye, there and gone in an instant, but I don’t turn to it. I’m not ready yet. I need just a little more time.
“Good,” Dani says sharply. “Still no reason to stick around. Let’s get back in the carriage.
” She reaches a hand toward Kelda, beckoning her over, but Kelda’s got her fingers latched into my shirt, gripping hard.
Next to me, Halle clutches my hand so tight that it hurts, and I can tell by the way she’s staring at me that at least part of her knows what’s coming.
She was up there. She saw and heard more than the rest of them.
Orion studies the expression on Halle’s face, the fear and panic and sorrow already written in her eyes, and then he looks over at me.
“V?” His voice is heavy. Like he doesn’t really want to ask.
“You know,” I tell him quietly. “You already know.”
Dani frowns at us, confused. “Know what? What does he know?”
“I’m staying,” I tell her.
Her mouth drops open. “I’m sorry— What?”
I look down at my hands, remembering the voices and the song and all that burning pain.
“The Heralds were a lie. They stripped this world for themselves, robbed us of what it was meant to be. The saints were supposed to fix it, but the Heralds stole that, too. Maybe if they hadn’t, things would be different.
But they’re all gone. It’s just me left. ”
Trinity is singing, and I’d always thought its song had been for the Butcher, a melody of phase-shifts and blood work and death.
But it isn’t. It’s for Valene. It’s always been for Valene.
I take off my weighted gloves one finger at a time, dropping them onto the ground. “I have to stay.”
“No!” Halle shakes her head, strands of dark hair sticking to the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Val, you can’t…”
I put my hands on either side of her face, my voice calm even though my heart is pounding and my chest is so full and tight that I almost can’t get the words out.
“Trinity has been calling me my entire life, Halle. I just never understood why. This world needs to heal, and to do that, I need to go back in.”
Halle’s expression is hard as metal under her tears. “It’s not a fair trade.”
“I know. I get it.” I take her hands, squeezing them. “You’ve always wanted to be a part of something bigger, and I never really understood that. Until this moment.”
Halle’s lips tremble, the hard edges of her expression softening. “You couldn’t just become a rogue preacher or something?”
A teary smile blurs my vision, and I pull her to me, hugging her tight. “This is your time, Halle Bruinn,” I say quietly, just for her ears. “You’ve always wanted to create change, so do it. Make this whole universe see how much it needs people like you.”
For a long moment, Halle doesn’t respond.
She does nothing but cry, arms tight around my bruised body.
When she finally nods, I squeeze her as a thank you, as a goodbye, as a half-assed way of trying to tell her everything that fifteen years of family builds up inside.
Then I turn to Kelda, who’s kneeling next to us with her gangly arms wrapped around Ember’s fuzzy red body and sobs hiccuping from her throat.
She drops her forehead onto my chest, her narrow shoulders shaking. “You promised. You promised you weren’t gonna leave me behind.”
“I know, smalls. But I won’t really be gone.
Trinity is all around you, which means I am, too, right?
” I take her by the arms, straightening her up so I can look her in the eye.
“You listen to me, okay? You be good for Halle. Do what she says.” A tear falls, and I wipe it off her cheek.
“Be brave, Kel. Be so much braver than me.”
Kelda nods and leans fully into me. Careful not to crush Ember, I hold her as my own body shakes from the sobs that I tamp down, push deep inside. Halle puts her arms around both of us, and the three of us huddle like that for a long while.
And then Trinity calls. Another flare ripples behind me, and Trinity’s song swells, wild and sharp, tugging at me like a lure. I look up through swollen, red-rimmed eyes and take a deep breath. I’m almost out of time.
Orion appears next to me as I stand, stepping from my sisters’ arms, and when I look at him, there are tears slipping down his face.
He reaches for me, hesitant, and I instantly move into his embrace, pressing my cheek against his warm chest. I think part of me has wanted to do this—to hug him like I used to, this hard and this close—since I saw him on that prison train, and I’m sorry now that it took me so long to listen to it.
“Thank you,” I murmur into his shirt, into the warmth and smell of him. “For sticking with me.”
His voice rumbles low against my ear. “I was always with you, V.”
I angle my head up so I can see his face. His cheeks and eyelashes are wet, and I brush the backs of my knuckles softly across the tears. He catches my hand gently in his, holding it like it’s something precious, and I let him. I let him treat me as precious.
Leaning up on my tiptoes, I touch my lips softly to his. It’s not much more than a breath of an instant, but I still feel his heartbeat stutter underneath my palm.
Dani stands off to the side, her arms crossed like a wall over her chest, her brows drawn down in vicious slashes. It’s the kind of expression meant to warn people away, but I walk toward her anyway.
“You can be angry with me—” I tell her, stepping up so close that we’re toe to toe, our faces inches apart.
“I am.” Her voice is tight with rage, but her eyes shine with tears, pooling in the corners. “I am furious with you.”
“—just please. Keep them safe. All of them.” I touch a hand to her cheek, running my thumb along the curve of her bottom lip, just like I’d always wanted to but never let myself. “They’re your family now, too.”
Her teeth are clenched hard enough to break bones. “I will never forgive you for this.” Her expression softens and an almost pleading tone enters her voice. “Me and you, ghoulie. We’re survivors.”
“I know.” I lean in and kiss her, too. Light and gentle as a breeze. “But we deserve more than just survival.”
I step back, my eyes finding Atlas and Liren a few steps away, their arms wrapped around each other, their fingers interlaced.
Liren shakes their head, a bittersweet twist to their lips. “You were right, Booker’s friend. You really are trouble.”
A short, soft laugh slips out on my next breath. “I tried to tell you.”
I look at Atlas, who stares back with an expression that’s somewhere between sorrow and resignation.
I want to tell him that he was right, that the divinity was inside each of us the whole time, that it was even inside me, which must be some kind of miracle.
But I think he already knows that. He nods, once, solemnly, and I nod back.
Then I turn and start to walk back toward the Gate.
My sisters slam into me before I make it two steps, enveloping me in soft arms and hard sobs.
One last hug. One last, precious moment holding one another like we did when the nights were dark and hungry and we were each other’s anchors. I tell them that I love them, and they say it back—they repeat it again and again until I am filled up, brimming with it.
I’m not going to forget them. I’m going to carry them with me into whatever comes next.
I imprint this promise, carving it into my bones before I pull out of their embraces for the last time.
The light calls again, singing, and this time I go to it.